The following special article was written by Joe Forecast, who predicted with such success reports of football encounters in the columns of the Crimson last year. At the requests of hundreds of fans, he has consented to resume his old post at a fabulous honorarium, and has signed a contract with the Crimson to begin his duties at once.

As I sit at my rebuilt Remington and pound out a few words of greeting to my old friends and, I trust, even more new ones, there wells up within me a very real feeling of emotion. I'm like that. Beneath a rough exterior lurks, and always has lurked a vein of sentiment. Even in those early days back in Shemokin, Pa., they told me I would never get very far because I was such a sentimental cuss. And now look at me--but that is another story.

But it would be a hard heart that would not beat just a bit faster upon returning after a long separation to the seene of its first triumphs. For, dear readers, it was among you. and it is with modest humility that I say this, it was among you that I became great. All that I am, and I need not tell you all that I am, I owe in part at least to you, my friends through thick and thin, and the thinner the thicker.

I arrived in this country just in time to predict that Tunney would win by a decision (honest I did), and I dropped the casual remark yesterday that Dartmouth ought to beat Norwich by the same score as last year (I hope you all read your Sunday papers). I also suggested that Cornell couldn't beat Geneva by more than six points. This is just to indicate to my now readers how good I am My old readers need not be told. And you all will know later that Joe Forecast is the same old Joe. I almost accepted a very flattering offer to forecast political returns this fall, and I woud have done it too but for the uncertainly of the woman's vote. For Joe Forecast, despite all rumors to the contrary, is but human; and there is his weakness. But football, a game for red-blooded, virile men, there Joe Forecast is in his element. How he longs for the opening kickoff to see the Crimson-jerseyed hosts pass and repass the last white line. But I grow poetic. I have to be very careful about that.

It really is hard to fill a column today with no prophecies to make until Saturday. I am a man of deeds, not words, and back in Shemokin they used to say, "Joe never speaks unless he has something to say." That has become a Shemokin tradition. My original thought was to pick an All-American team for 1926, and thus win the distinction of being the first, as well as of course the best, to perform that feat this year. But that is against CRIMSON policy, they tell me, and CRIMSON policy is a fearful and wonderful thing. They sometimes even put me on an inside page.